Apowers' Design School Journey

Also, Yo, I have tried overlays a few times and I haven’t had much success at “fixing” any sketches, I end up just making the sketch really static. I’ll try some overlays tonight, thanks again for the feedback.

One more week until I’ll be back in the IDS groove…

Some quick sketches in class today 3-5 minutes per. First time sketching shoes

Those cameras are looking pretty good. They look a bit looser, and more abbreviated. They also look better because the design elements go together better. Seems like your sense of design language is improving, which makes sketching much easier!

I recommend using pens at this point instead of pencil. Pencil is more forgiving, so it’s not as good as pens for practicing. A sharpie will make you good at line weights really fast, and help teach restraint. I’m more of a scratchy sketcher as well. I use the BIC Crystal pens, which are probably too scratchy for good sketch practice, but I like that pencil grip. =)

Pens also allow you to define an idea faster, so you can generate more iterations, and more ideas as a result.

Thanks for the feedback, Cameron!

Unfortunately my current Design Drawing 1 class is Prismacolor pencil only so I was just getting in the groove of using pencil again.

I have a ton of sketches to post I’m just trying to figure out a good way to scan them because they are all on 18x24 paper. I think I’m just going to have to crop each individual sketch or as many that will fit under the scanner.

Until then, here is my 2nd week assignment in Design Drawing 1. This assignment was the introduction to shading all primitive shapes. The top left page is the page in which I finished last, and the bottom left was my first page. I have a handful of things that I know need improvement but I’d love to hear more from you guys.

And here’s my first try at rendering in Photoshop, messing around with different styles and black/grey/high contrast surfaces.

Looks like your confidence on the page is building.

Thanks Yo,

Here’s this weeks work… Showing black and white surfaces…

big step!

Nice tonal sketchwork!

very good, but be careful with middle cylinders top ellipses, they look a bit too dark

Thanks guys!

Here’s a page for next week I did today.

The flu gets passed around at the beginning of every semester…

This assignment was black and white primitives that are ‘chopped’. Sorry for the crooked photo!

Next weeks assignment is ‘primitive combinations’ based off of 3 proportioned cubes, with black and white surfaces and chopped as well… I’m having a difficult time coming up with creative ways to combine volumes and forms…

Your case is very interesting because you have a really beautiful command of value and tonality, but your line work and line weight control is really undeveloped.

Maybe as an experiment, take a piece of tracing paper and sketch over one of your “value” pages. Try to get the linework, and line weight to offer the same amount of depth and form description. Experiment with what lines need to be heavier and which don’t. It will feel very artificial at first, because humans don’t see in lines, only value and color, which you understand really well. Spend longer on the linework studies than you think you should. Generally yours are under worked.

Thanks for the input, Brett!

My instructor also commented on my line work, and was glad to see that I was getting some good input from people outside of school.

With that being said, here is what I am experimenting with. I went back to an old page and messed around with lineweights and the last page I’ll be posting is for next weeks assignment. On Monday I’ll post everything and there should be a huge improvement!

coming along nicely Aaron. Maybe start softening these forms and see how it goes.

This week’s work: primitive combinations.

Bottom left page is rough thumbnails

I keep running into a brick wall when I try to come up with interesting forms… Overall not too satisfied.

This week’s assignment is product–esque objects combined with primitives.

Thanks yo, will try to come up with some nicer forms to look at.

Here’s this week’s work. Black and white products with an introduction to reflective surfaces.

Here is my first real digital rendering and also my midterm.

very nice!